Backing up to an external FAT32 disk

[Rashkae]

Liam Proven wrote:
> On 12/07/07, Rashkae <ubuntu at tigershaunt.com> wrote:
>> Nils Kassube wrote:
>>> Liam Proven wrote:
>>>> I am trying to backup a 98% full RAID array (some 100GB of stuff) onto
>>>> a 400GB FAT32 USB2 external hard drive. I don't have space on the RAID
>>>> itself to create the archive, nor on my 3G root FS.
>>>>
>>>> I tried (in my /media directory, the mountpoint for both the RAID and
>>>> the USB drive):
>>>>
>>>> tar -cvf usbdrive/raid.tar raid/
>>>>
>>>> This worked but I forgot one detail. FAT32 has a max file size of
>>>> about 4G. So when the archive got to 4G, it barfed.
>>> Try this:
>>>
>>> tar c raid | split -d --suffix-length=3 --bytes=1000m - usbdrive/raid_
>>>
>>> That will give you files of 1000MB size with filenames usbdrive/raid_<nnn>
>>> with <nnn> being numbers counting from 001.
>>>
>>> You can test the archive with:
>>>
>>> cat usbdrive/raid_* | tar tv
>>>
>>> And you can restore a file with:
>>>
>>> cat usbdrive/raid_* | tar x <filename>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nils
>>>
>> This is the right approach, but I would use a command more like:
>>
>> tar -cz raid | split -b 2000m - /media/usbdrive/raid.tar.gz.
>>
>> And as already mentioned, to restore:
>>
>> cat /media/usbdrive/raid.tar.gz.* | tar -xz   (run this in the location
>> where you want the files restored.)
> 
> Thanks for that!
> 
> I would ask the same question that I asked Nils, though...?
> 

A fine question.  And indeed, if tar can, on it's own create multiple 
files, then I've learned something new... I always considered those 
switches as nothing more than a means of changing your media for those 
backup methods where tar writes *directly* to the backup device.